I'm a Northwest Packer Backer

Anyone who knows me knows that I bleed green and yellow for the Green Bay Packers. My mom passed on her passion for the Pack to my brothers and I, and she taught me all I know about Packer football. On of my mom's most prized possessions is a dancing Brett Favre doll. She bought a 50-inch plasma television and subscribed to HDTV football channels just to see the Pack play for the 4-month season.


It goes without saying, but living in Seattle makes me a target for the local fans. Seattle coach, Mike Holmgren, used to coach the Pack and won a Super Bowl while at Green Bay. A few years ago, the Seahawks lost a close game to the Pack in the playoffs. Luckily, my new boss, Rob, told me about a Packer bar in Seattle called Goofy's where I could mingle with my own kind. Today we went to Goofy's to watch the first half of the game. Despite the fact that the bar was full of Packer fans, a few tables in the back of the bar had some loud Seahawks fans. The fans were clearly looking to piss off the Cheeseheads. Frankly, I'm okay with taunting when you are the local fans. I don't care if someone screams in my face. In fact, that happened to me last night when I was meeting up with some friends from law school. One of the guys talked a lot of trash about an inch from my face. I'm respectful enough to understand that being a local gives you a little more authority to be a jerk.

In the first few minutes of the game, the Seahawk fans erupted after the Hawks got two touchdowns off of Packer turnovers. However, the Pack came back and that's when the Seahawk fans got ugly. A woman in a Favre jersey came up to me at halftime asking if the Packer-dense area of the bar was friendlier because the Seahawk fans started targeting her personally. They called her fat and started calling her really offensive names after the Packers took the lead in the 2nd quarter.

I'm passionate about my football, but I wouldn't attack someone personally. I HATE the Bears. I make jokes about individual players on the Bears or call George Halas an evildoer, but I don't make personal attacks. Interstingly, when Ryan and I first moved here 4 years ago, the Seahawk games were blacked out on TV because the games couldn't sell out. Now we have the "12th Man" and all that crap.

Posers...

You also know that Ryan is a soccer fan, but he supports the NY Giants in American football. Tomorrow we are both supporting the G-men over the Cowboys -- Ryan as a fan, and me to get the next game at Lambeau.

By the way, the title of this entry was inspired by the name of the local Packer club.